A British Airways pilot who was taken ill with COVID-19 in March 2020 while in Houston, Texas spent a record 243 days in hospital but managed to beat off the virus and was eventually discharged just before Christmas.
Nicholas Synnott, 59, of Surrey, England has declined to talk to the media while he continues his recovery but UT Health has shared some details of Mr Synott’s treatment, saying he had gone into respiratory failure and had to be placed on a ventilator and then on a heart and lung machine, The Time reports (paywall).
“It was a tough journey but, we’ve got where we are,” Mr Synnott told ABC 30 News as he left the UT Health and Memorial Hermann Hospital. “I went through a dark phase where psychologically there were issues I had to deal with,” he continued.
Mr Synott’s wife, Nicola spent every day at his bedside while he recovered. He said that the support of his wife and the thought of returning to his children had helped him fight off the virus.
The previous British record holder had been Ali Sakallioglu who spent 222 days in the hospital with COVID-19 before eventually being discharged in mid-December.
“Every organ of his body was affected by Covid-19,” explained Dr Biswajit Kar, a cardiologist who treated Mr Synnott. “But yet, because his health was so good as a pilot prior to the illness, he could sustain all this and survive something as serious as this.”
Dr. Bindu Akkanti, however, said that his medical team feared the worst at points during the pilot’s stay in hospital. “There was always a question, ‘Is he even in there?’
“Given the enormous number of the medications the other multi-organ issues that were happening.”
My Synott is now continuing his recovery in England but he says that he hopes to return to Houston to once again thank the medical team that treated him and also to visit the zoo that he could see from the window of his hospital room.
